CLIMATE CHANGE/FOREIGN POLICY: “World leaders struck a compromise on Saturday [7-8-17] to move forward collectively on climate change without the United States, declaring the Paris accord ‘irreversible’ while acknowledging President Trump’s decision to withdraw from the agreement.
In a final communiqué at the conclusion of the Group of 20 summit meeting in Hamburg, Germany, the nations took ‘note’ of Mr. Trump’s decision to abandon the pact and ‘immediately cease’ efforts to enact former President Barack Obama’s pledge of curbing greenhouse gas emissions 26 to 28 percent below 2005 levels by 2025.
But the other 19 members of the group broke explicitly with Mr. Trump in their embrace of the international deal, signing off on a detailed policy blueprint outlining how their countries could meet their goals in the pact.
The statement and the adoption of the G20 Climate and Energy Action Plan for Growth ended three days of intense negotiations over how to characterize the world’s response to Mr. Trump’s decision to pull out of the Paris climate agreement, and it came as this year’s meeting of major world economies here laid bare the stark divide between the United States and the rest.”
-Steven Erlanger, Alison Smale, Lisa Friedman, and Julie Hirschfeld Davis, “World Leaders Move Forward on Climate Change, Without U.S.,” The New York Times online, July 8, 2017